DCB9

On the Voyage of the Vikings Cruise last summer (2023) my wife won a big jackpot on the sea day before we arrived in Rotterdam.  After having lunch she decided to go to the casino, but I decided to save my money for the evening and returned to our cabin.  A little while later she texted me to get her ID and bring it to the casino.  I figured that meant she had won a jackpot and when I found her it looked like she had won $816 and I wondered why she needed her ID for that, but on closer examination I saw she had won $8160, I was shocked to say the least!  The amazing thing was that after she had gotten paid, she decided to play a little more won an additional $1120 on another machine.  It was by far the most we had ever won in a ship's casino.

On my laptop and desktop computer, I often have trouble with HAL website.  I use Firefox as my browser and it seems to have frequent problems ,so I also try Chrome and Edge and have pretty good success doing that.  One thing that always seems to cure my problem is clearing my cache.  Of course, none of this will help if the problem is on HAL's end which it sometimes is.

My wife and I generally do longer cruises and we have used Luggage Forward five times and will use them again in July.  We use them for both shipping to and from the ship and have never had a problem although I am always nervous until they show up in our room.  It is pricey, but much easier than lugging multiple bags through airports and then to the port.

12 hours ago, Herschel Dirtwater said:

A little late here, but this is my $.02.

 

If you want to  take pictures with a 'real' camera and not iPhone, I will always recommend a DSLR.  I've taken some excellent pictures with a fixed lens digital camera in the past, but shooting in RAW format with a DSLR will give you photos that you never dreamed you could take.  

 

Contrary to popular belief, DSLRs are not prohibitively expensive.  $500 will get you a very good camera with a decent kit lens (a kit lens is the one that comes with the camera).  On auto settings, this is basically a point-and-shoot.  The thing is, you can set it to take RAW images instead of JPEG.  RAW is an image that has not been compressed or altered in any way, thus leaving it the best option for post production.  JPEGs are fine for everyday shooting, but they are compressed which eliminates some fine detail.

 

If you enjoy photography, a budget DSLR gives you a nice entry into more serious shooting, but also with room to grow into new lenses and different shooting methods.  A point-and-shoot digital  camera is a good option for those who don't like too many options while shooting.  Good ones can cost as much as an entry-level DSLR so why not go for the better camera?

 

Of course, in 2022, an iPhone or good Android phone takes pictures as good as any point-and-shoot from 10 years ago. 🙂

I agree with what you said, but I would suggest for someone with no previous experience shooting raw to set the camera to save raw+jpeg.  This gives you the ability to take a quick look at your photos without having to load the raw files into a raw viewer or processor.  I have been shooting raw since 2008 and I still shoot raw+jpeg.

Once you start shooting raw, you'll never go back.  Using a photo editor like Lightroom, it is just as easy to edit the raw files as jpegs and you have so much more flexibility as nothing is baked in like it is in jpegs.  The first time you have a high contrast photo and are able to bring up all the shadow detail, you'll be hooked.

Dave

4 hours ago, Bowm54 said:

Hi all, I have a large number of pre digital era negatives which I would like to keep in one easy to access place (my computer).

After searching the internet I came across this $75aud lumo gadget that may fit the bill. I have a spare iphone 5c so once I have the unit setup it can remain as one piece.

Does anybody here have experience using this setup and which software program do you prefer?

The scans would only be used for screen viewing, not printing enlargements. A more expensive alternative is the $400aud  plustek 8100.

Any suggestions?

Thankyou.

 

 

 

I just finished scanning several thousand of my old color negatives (lots of time on my hands) using an older Plustek 7600i film and slide scanner and it worked very well.  I have never used or even seen the other device you referred to so I can't compere it with that.

One thing to beware of when you scan your negative, you will see a lot of scratches and grain that didn't show up in the prints as the printing of negatives through an enlarger tends to minimize that.  The Plustek has an infrared channel that can be used to alleviate some of the scratches and dust spots, not perfect, but it works pretty well. 

If you decide to go with the Plustek, I would highly recommend Vuescan from Hamrick Software as your scanning software.  It has built in drivers for thousands of scanners and profiles for most of the film and slide types.

Dave

7 hours ago, pierces said:

 

To be honest, I can't tell a difference in day to day Photoshop use. I see a huge decrease in Photoshop and Lightroom load times, but the drive configuration and overall system speed are likely the prime movers there. Despite the lack of Photoshop benchmarks you mentioned, I went with 64GB because I planned on doing a bit more with video where the extra RAM can contribute and the 32GB kit went on sale again. Mostly the last. The choice was "just in case" rather than "I think I need".

 

 

Dave

Thanks, maybe I will add the additional 32GB and add a bit of future proofing.  I also debated whether to use i9-9900k instead of the i7-9700k because the i9-9900 supports 16 thread.  I had read an article that said in the future that would become more and more important, but ultimately I decided to stick to the i7-9700.  Anyway, thanks for your comments.

Dave

On 3/16/2020 at 1:19 PM, pierces said:

 

It was sprinkled here and there with some additions and edits but there's the final list:

 

CPU - Intel 1-i7-9700K
RAM - 2-2x16GB kits for 64GB -Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM 
Motherboard - Asus ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming Motherboard
GPU - ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Overclocked
SSD - 2x XPG GAMMIX 1TB S11 Pro 3D NAND PCIe NVMe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 SSD
(one for boot and one for working directories)
HD - Seagate BarraCuda 6TB Internal Hard Drive HDD 5400 RPM 256MB Cache
CPU Cooler - Thermaltake Floe Triple Riing RGB 360 TT Premium Liquid cooler
Power Supply - Seasonic FOCUS Plus 750 Platinum SSR-750PX 750W
Case - Thermaltake Core P3 ATX Tempered Glass Gaming Computer Case Chassis

 

Glad you got some use out of a year's worth of my rambling! 🙂

 

Dave

Thanks for all the info.  I am currently upgrading my computer that I built six years ago and will also be using the i7-9700K and a similar, but not the same Asus motherboard.  I have been debating on whether to go with 32 or 64GB of RAM and finally settled on 32GB as none of the benchmarks seemed to warrant very much benefit with more RAM for the software I use..  I am wondering if you are seeing a performance boost by going with the full 64.  The main software I am running is Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Premier, and After Effects. 

Thanks for sharing the information on your build,, I have enjoyed following this thread

Another Dave

I recently sold some Nikon old lenses and cameras I wasn't using anymore and use B&H.  You don't get top dollar, but it was fast and very easy.

I have a question for the Luminar users.  I am locked into the Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop combo for my own work, but I am looking at Luminar 4 as a Christmas gift for my brother.  He is looking for a way to organize his photos and I thought a program such as Liminar would do the trick for him without having to deal with a subscription plus it looks like a relatively powerful, easy to use editor.  I have read reviews and everything in this thread, but I haven't actually heard anyone say much about the cataloging capabilities except for the speed issues, I can't even find much detail on the Luminar website.  My question is how does it compare to the Lightroom catalog capabilities.  I see it has star ratings, but does it have keywords and other ways to filter you photos like Lightroom does?  Thanks for your help.

Dave

1 hour ago, KYBOB said:

Which Z lens did you find you use most on your trip?  We are going a trip soon, not as exotic as the Amazon, New York for a few days then jump on a 10 day New England cruise up to Quebec. 

I mainly used the only Z lens I had at the time, the 24-70 f4.  I thought the 24 mm was probably as wide as I needed so the only other lens I brought was my 80-400 which is a decent lens, but way to big and heavy for travel.  Since I mostly do travel photography, every time I have traveled with that lens, I have regretted it.  Since then I have bought the new 70-300 mm which is much better than the old one I used to have and is small enough to use for travel.  I am looking forward for to new Z lenses, but I'm sure they will be trickling out slowly.  I didn't have any regrets using the 24-70 and found it to be an excellent lens.  Enjoy your cruise.

I bought my Z6 last January and took it to Rio for Carnival and then up the Amazon and loved it (both the camera and Brazil).  I was using a D750 and did bring it with me, but rarely used it and when I got home I sold it and now shoot exclusively with the Z6.  It is a very nice camera and while the body isn't significantly smaller than my D750 the Z lenses are.  The only thing missing is a selection of Z lenses, but the FTZ adapter works well, but you lose the size and weight savings.  I have no regrets buying the Z6 and would recommend it.

My wife and I took this cruise in 2015.  Here is a link to our travel blog for that cruise.

http://daveandvalstravels.blogspot.com/2015/03/inca-emprie-cruise-almost-time.html

Dave

My wife and I are probably on the same cruise as the OP and and had a similar experience with Visa Central.  I found their website to be confusing and misleading.  I also could not find any information about how much it cost and actually had to go through the checkout process.  When I saw what they were charging (very high) I cancelled and decided to do some further research.  I found out about VFSGlobal and the process couldn't have been easier.  I filled out the necessary forms and uploaded passport pictures of my wife and I and we received our e-visas the very next day.  I believe the total cost was $88.  We did check with HAL to make sure they would accept e-visas and they said they would.

My wife and I did the deluxe tour in 2015 and also thought it was fabulous. It is quite expensive, but it was a once in a lifetime experience for us and well worth it. If you are interested in the details you can check out my blog pages from our trip.

Day 1:

http://daveandvalstravels.blogspot.com/2015/04/inca-emprie-cruise-day-15-lima-to-cusco.html

Day 2:

http://daveandvalstravels.blogspot.com/2015/04/inca-emprie-cruise-day-16-cusco-to.html

Day 3:

http://daveandvalstravels.blogspot.com/2015/04/inca-emprie-cruise-day-17-cusco-to-lima.html

Dave

I started taking pictures with various Brownies and even an old fold out 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 camera, but I consider my first SLR my first real camera. That would be a Minolta SR7 given to me as a high school graduation present in 1966. Everything was manual back then, but that camera was really rugged and went with me every where. I have to mention that my favorite SLR was a Minolta XE7. It added auto focus and exposure and was also very rugged. I carried it everywhere including motorcycle trips all over the west and it always worked.

Ah thanks for the info! I definitely want to see wildlife but not sure about photographing it. Feeling like, given that I haven't done a lot of shooting recently, I might be more focused on taking photographs than just being in awe. My thought was landscapes would give me more time to compose and also are something I might want to hang up on the wall kinda thing. Plus I can experiment around with film more. I've read teles can be good even for landscapes (so you can better frame things, say from the cruise ship itself) but yeah the heft of such a lens, relative to how much time I'll have to mess about with it before we cruise had me concerned. I do have a low end 70-300 I may take just to have a shot for the memories if I end up being in a place to use it. I thought (hard) about the 24-120 but that 28-80 is almost hilariously fun to use because it's so dinky looking :) And if I break it, well, it was only $50. I miss out on some reach on both sides but I thought it might be a good walk around lens that's cheap. I have a 50mm prime I could slap on too for just walking around the port if I need faster/sharper glass. I guess the question is, for landscapes would you still find the 24-120 and 70-400 a good useful combo?

Good luck, whatever you bring I'm sure you'll get some great pictures.

I also have a D750 which I took on an Alaskan cruise + land tour several years ago. My go to travel lens is the Nikon 24-120 which I find to be a very good lens and has a good wide angle, but limited reach. Besides that lens I carried a Nikon 16-35 and a Nikon 70-300. All things considered, I ended up using the 70-300 a lot more than the wide angle zoom because of the wildlife. I was disappointed in the sharpness of my 70-300 and also wanted more reach.so I have since bought the 80-400 which seems to be a much better lens. The problem with the 80-400 is that it is a much bigger lens and if you have limited space to pack it, it takes up a lot of room. If I were going again to Alaska I would skip my wide angle zoom as I found the 24-120 to be wide enough in most cases and bring my 80-400. Bear in mind though, the 80-400 is a much more expensive lens than the 70-300 so I had to think long and hard before I bought it.

Sorry I should have clarified it . I want a good all in one . I have the 18-55 and a 70-200 . But I would like to find that middle range one that is an all purpose persay . I want to be able to take good wide angle shots too . Would the 16-85mm be good ?

I love the 16-85 lens, it has been around for a while, but it has gotten excellent reviews. There have been rumors for a while that it will be updated soon, but I've been hearing that for a couple of years so I don't know if or when that will happen. I have recently upgraded my D300 to a D750, but for the last seven years the 16-85 has been on my D300 most of the time. Nikon is offering pretty good rebates on many of their lenses right now which I think have been extended to the end of March.

Dave